


Together in Paris

by morgaine2005



Category: Beauty and the Beast (2017), Beauty and the Beast - All Media Types
Genre: At least not explicitly written, F/M, Fluff, Happy times in Paris, Mostly Adelle with Plumiere implied, Not THOSE kinds of happy times, Post-Canon, just implied
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-19
Updated: 2018-03-19
Packaged: 2019-04-04 11:05:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,878
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14018916
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/morgaine2005/pseuds/morgaine2005
Summary: Some time after their wedding, Adam and Belle visit a Paris that is far from the Paris of Belle's childhood. The two explore the city, and fluff ensues. (Written in honor of the first anniversary of the movie coming out.)





	Together in Paris

If Versailles was penance, then Paris was surely heaven.

Adam and Belle had spent over a fortnight at court, being put through their paces by every courtier under the sun while seeking a belated wedding blessing from the king. Now, Adam glanced sidelong at his wife as their carriage trundled through the crowded Parisian streets. Belle was finally out of the ridiculous wigs and mile-wide panniers favored by the court, and now that she had no need to impress bored courtiers, she practically bounced in her seat, nose pressed to the window to take in every sight.

Yet she seemed to sense his regard and turned to him, that same nose wrinkled. “What?”

“Nothing, nothing!”

Belle raised an eyebrow.

“Well, it’s just …” Adam tilted his head to one side. “You are a Parisienne, _cherie_ , but you act like you’ve never seen the city before,” he teased.

Belle rolled her eyes. “I left as an infant. That hardly counts. And …” Her voice faltered, and Adam knew both of them were picturing a crumbling, dusty attic in the heights of Montmartre.

She shook her head. “I’ve certainly never seen _this_ part of Paris before.”

She turned back to the window, and Adam occupied himself with playing with her hair. Belle shot a baleful _look_ , to which he responded with a rakish grin, the type that Belle could never allow to remain on his face and simply had to wipe off using any means necessary.

The type of means she used today made Adam very, very grateful that the windows of the carriage had curtains and that one of them (Adam could not remember which) had the presence of mind to draw them. All that they had to do to preserve whatever shreds of dignity they had left was to keep quiet.

They failed at that, but Adam trusted that the street noise covered up the worst of it.

Well … maybe not the growls.

They passed a pleasant enough interlude in that way, and luckily the city traffic was bad enough that they were able to get themselves into some semblance of order by the time the carriage turned into the _cour d’honneur_ that led to the Paris _hôtel_ of the Princes de Beaumont.

Not that it made a difference, for Lumiere – who had gone ahead with Plumette to ensure that the _hôtel_ staff had all in readiness – shot Adam a knowing look as soon as the doors to the carriage opened. Plumette, a few steps behind him, had to cover her giggles with her hand.

“And was your journey pleasant, Madame?” Lumiere asked he handed Belle down from the carriage.

“Quite, thank you, Lumiere,” Belle replied, waiting only until she got to the ground to shake out her skirts in that most bewitching and utterly un-self-conscious way she had. It fell to Plumette, still laughing and shaking her head, to meet Belle halfway and continue making small adjustments to her dress and coiffure as they headed into the _hôtel_.

“Were the roads very rough?” Lumiere asked Adam, not a hint of a smile on his face, as they moved to follow their ladies. “You and Madame seem a bit … disheveled, is all.”

Adam glared.

Lumiere grinned.

Adam laughed and slapped Lumiere on the back. “As if _you_ have any room to talk whatsoever, old friend.”

“Indeed I do not, but you are fun to tease,” Lumiere replied. “Now, let us—”

He didn’t finish, probably because he and Adam had walked into the _hôtel_ and had to stop short before they smacked into Belle, who had come to a dead stop not three steps from the door.

Adam and Lumiere shared a quick glance that showed each to be bewildered as the other. Adam slowly skirted around Belle to see her face.

Her jaw had fallen, her lively brown eyes wide and almost perfectly round. Adam carefully took her hand and threaded her fingers through his own. Belle didn’t notice.

He glanced up, trying to take in the grand foyer and sweeping staircase through her eyes. It held not a candle to their palace in the countryside, and of course it was nothing compared to Versailles – and Belle had not reacted in this way to either of those places.

Then again, Belle had seen Versailles before; her father had painted portraits there for some years in Belle’s childhood. As for the palace, when Belle had first seen it, it had not looked its best; when it _did_ look its best, her attention had been focused on other things.

Adam stroked the back of her hand with his thumb. “We can redecorate, if you like,” he said lightly.

Belle turned to him suddenly. “What?”

“If you don’t like the décor.” Adam glanced around. “Just say the word. We can have an army of painters, plasterers, etc. here in minutes.”

Her brows knit. “Which did your father prefer again – Paris or Versailles?”

Adam chuckled. “He preferred to split his time between both – which was very convenient for me, as it made it easy for me to be wherever he was not.” Belle’s grip on his hand tightened. “However, after he died, _I_ preferred Paris.”

“And let me guess – once he passed, you had the whole place redecorated as soon as you could?”

“I invited an architect and a decorator to the funeral luncheon, so, yes.”

Belle smiled and squeezed his hand once again. “Then I don’t think any redecoration is necessary at this time. Now, where can we get some _food_?”

“Your words are music to my ears, Madame!” Lumiere cried out. “As it happens, dinner is just about ready to be served, although if you and the Master would prefer to freshen up first …”

“No, thank you” Adam and Belle said in unison, punctuated by a growl from Adam’s stomach.

“Excellent, excellent! Now, if you will just follow me – I have also taken the opportunity of preparing a little entertainment with the house staff, just a trifle, you understand, _not_ up to our usual standards, but good enough for your first night in town—”

“Oh _no_ ,” Adam murmured, and he was rewarded for that with an elbow to the ribs from Belle.

Knowing better than to argue further, Adam followed the gold-suited maître ‘d to the dining room, his fingers and Belle’s still intertwined.

* * *

Their first night in Paris passed quietly (well, quietly for Belle and Adam, and the less said about that the better). Their first morning was rather less quiet. Belle was up with the birds (Adam perforce following soon after), barely willing to eat and dress before wanting to be out of doors and exploring the great city.

So it was at an hour that most of the Adam’s former friends would find _most_ unfashionable that he and Belle were on the streets and heading to Notre Dame. Adam had wanted to take the carriage; Belle had wanted to walk; they compromised by going on horseback.

They arrived at Notre Dame in time for Mass, though if Adam was being honest with himself, he had to wonder how much of it either of them took in. Between his dissolute life before the curse and the fact of the curse itself, not to mention the whole “coming back from the dead” bit, sometimes he wondered if he was taking his life in his hands whenever he so much as set foot on holy ground. As for Belle, there was so much to see inside the cathedral that it was obvious that she could only direct her attention to the service with an effort.

Once Mass concluded, they spent nearly half an hour exploring the cathedral before mounting their horses and riding to the Champs-Elysees. This part of the city was just starting to come alive. They rode past cafés and shops and watched couples promenading through the tree-lined streets. Belle had to see everything – the architecture, the flora, the fauna, the humans who called the street and the city home. Adam was content to watch Belle.

They stopped a few times – sometimes in a shop, once at a café. They did not spend long in any of the shops. Before, Adam might have whiled away a couple of hours and more _livres_ than he cared to contemplate, seeking beautiful things for his palace and something, anything to dispel the _ennui_. Now, he had better things to do.

Or so he thought, until they came to what had been, before the curse, his favorite bookshop.

“Monsieur de Beaumont!” the shop-owner, Monsieur Libraire, exclaimed as soon as Adam and Belle entered the shop. “How good it is to see you again! It has been so long since you last …” Here he trailed off, his eyes taking on that familiar faraway look that seemed to inflict all of Adam’s old acquaintances when they tried to determine just how long it had been and why the Prince de Beaumont’s long absence had not bothered them before.

Best to interrupt. “Indeed, Monsieur, it has been too long. Please allow me to introduce my wife, Madame la Princesse de Beaumont.”

“How do you do?” Belle said, sticking out her hand in her familiar, fearless way. Versailles hadn’t broken her of that habit, and Adam hoped that nothing ever would.

Monsieur Libraire’s eyes bugged at the familiarity. He took her hand and shook it, very slowly and carefully. “How—that is—very well—er—how are you?”

“Very well myself, thank you,” Belle replied. Her eyes sparkled as she took in the books surrounding them. “But if you don’t mind …” She gestured to said books.

“Not at all, not at all, Madame!” Monsieur Libraire laughed, and that was all the encouragement Belle needed to go lose herself in the shelves. Adam watched her go.

“Monsieur de Beaumont,” Monsieur Libraire murmured, “I have, of course, set aside a few selections from the shipments that I have received since you were last here, if you would like to peruse them?”

Adam very nearly winced, remembering just what his literary tastes had been before the curse set in. Suffice to say that most of the books he had pursued had not been suitable for family entertainment. “Oh?”

Something must have shown on his face, for Monsieur Libraire asked, “Unless, of course, your tastes have somewhat altered since your marriage …?”

“Yes. Yes, they have,” Adam replied with no little relief. “Slight alteration of tastes after marriage” was much easier to explain than “curse, years of depression and near-death experience.” “You understand, with a—with a wife at home …”

“But of course,” Monsieur Libraire nodded. “But have your tastes altered so much that knightly romances no longer find favor with you?”

This time, Adam’s “Oh?” was of an entirely different timbre, and he was only too happy to accompany Monsieur Libraire to where the books for his “special customers” were kept. Once he saw what the good Monsieur had set aside for him, the only fly in Adam’s ointment was trying to ensure that Monsieur Libraire didn’t worry too much over the books’ dusty appearance and how long it had been since the last of them had come into his possession.

His gleeful reveries might have continued for quite some time, but they were interrupted by Belle’s voice and the sound of her rushing feet. “Adam. _Adam_. They have the _Principia_ here—all three books—in the—oh, excuse me! I’m so sorry!”

Very much fearing he might have to emulate his literary heroes and fight a dragon for his beloved, Adam rushed to follow the sound of Belle’s voice.

Luckily, the products of his overactive imagination had no relation to reality, for Adam had just rounded the corner of the bookshelves when he heard a low, soft voice saying reassuringly, “It is quite all right, Madame, no harm done.”

The speaker was a woman in late middle age, quite handsome with a long face, keen dark eyes, and a pair of lips that seemed just a second away from being twisted into a sardonic smile. Adam had to tilt his head; she looked … familiar somehow … but he was sure she was not a close acquaintance.

Adam was still puzzling over this when Monsieur Libraire came to their little tableau. He wore the look of horror that only a shopkeeper in mortal fear that two of his better customers had offended each other could understand. “Madame Geoffrin – Madame de Beaumont – is everything all right?”

Madame Geoffrin! Adam’s eyes went wide. Madame Geoffrin was the premier salonnière in the city, the woman in whose parlor met the best artists and men of letters.

And Belle, to judge by the way her eyes widened and her jaw fell, knew this.

Yet Belle and Adam were not the only ones to recognize a name; Madame Geoffrin had her eyes fixed on Belle, a calculating look in them. “Madame de Beaumont? Madame la Princesse de Beaumont?” she asked.

“Yes …” Belle replied, looking for all that world that she wouldn’t mind if the floor opened up and swallowed her.

Madame Geoffrin—

Adam blinked.

She was _smiling_?

“Madame,” she said, the smile growing. “Forgive me – the circumstances are, perhaps, not exactly usual, but I am most pleased to make your acquaintance.”

“… Eh?” Belle squeaked.

Madame Geoffrin ignored that. “You see, my old friend, the Madame de Pompadour, wrote to me of you and mentioned you would soon be staying in Paris. It seems that much of what she said,” her eyes fell on the books in Belle’s arms, “is accurate.” Madame Geoffrin’s eyes glittered with some secret source of mirth, and the smile turned fully sardonic. “I thought, perhaps, that you and your husband might be interested in attending my salon one of these days?”

“Your—your salon?” Belle squeaked.

Adam had never seen her so awed, and he wished he had some way of preserving this moment for posterity – or at least for their friends and the staff back at the palace, because he doubted they’d believe him if he told them.

“It’s just a small gathering of friends and acquaintances,” Madame Geoffrin said – and yes, that smile was _definitely_ sardonic, and Belle was most certainly being teased. “Including a few of better-known writers, artists, philosophers—”

“Yes! I mean,” Belle swallowed, “I would be— _we_ would be—Adam, we’d be delighted, wouldn’t we?”

“We most certainly would,” Adam responded at once. “Thank you, Madame.”

Madame Geoffrin nodded most graciously; then her eyes alighted on Monsieur Libraire. “Ah, Monsieur! I have found all that I wish to purchase for today. If we may …?”

“But of course, Madame,” Monsieur Libraire replied. He led the way to the front of the shop.

Madame Geoffrin made to follow, but not before turning to Belle one last time. “We shall see each other Wednesday next, then? My home is on the Rue Saint-Honoré. Dinner is served at one o’clock.”

“We—we’ll be there. Thank you,” Belle said.

“I look forward to it. _Au revoir_ ,” Madame Geoffrin said, then she moved out of sight with Monsieur Libraire.

As soon as she was gone, Belle turned to Adam with an expression of unabashed joy that he hadn’t seen since—well, since last night, as a point of fact, but now was not the time to go into that. “ _Adam_!”

Adam was by her side in two long strides, and he paused only to rescue the books from her shaking hands, piling them on a shelf, before folding her into his arms. And just in time, too, for her squeal of joy was just abled to be muffled by his jacket and the rest of him.

“Adam— _Adam_ —we just—we got—Madame Geoffrin! She just—”

“Yes, yes, I know, love.” Adam held her closer. “And you might as well stop saying ‘we.’ _You_ were the one she wanted, and I suspect _I’m_ only allowed to join on sufferance.”

Belle once again squealed into his jacket. She was practically vibrating with joy, and Adam could only bask in her radiance.

Then, suddenly, the vibrating stopped. Belle pulled away. “Oh—oh goodness—I have _so_ much reading to do before Wednesday—”

“Wait, what?”

“Do you know who comes to Madame Geoffrin’s salon? I have to—oh my goodness—”

“Belle. _Belle_.” Adam cupped her cheeks with both hands and tilted her head up to face him. Not caring that they were in public, he kissed her forehead. “Don’t worry about that. You’ll be fine. They’ll love you. Even if you haven’t read every last one of their works.”

“But—”

He kissed her again, this time on the mouth. “They. Will. Love. You,” he repeated. “And besides, if you don’t feel perfectly at ease and comfortable in Madame Geoffrin’s salon, you can always start one of your own.”

Belle’s face went completely blank, and her eyes went unfocused. She swallowed – so hard that Adam could see it – not once, but twice. “Adam?”

“Yes?”

“Don’t tempt me.”

Adam laughed and put an arm around her shoulders. “That’s my Belle. Come, darling.” He retrieved the books he had placed on the shelf and led her back to the counter. “Let’s pay for these and get out of here. There’s so much of Paris you haven’t seen yet.”

And, to paraphrase Belle’s much-beloved Shakespeare, they suited the action to the word.

**Author's Note:**

> 1) A hôtel, technically hôtel particulier, is the town home of a wealthy member of French society. We’d say “townhouse” in England, but one thing to keep in mind is that hôtels were freestanding, often with a cour d’honneur in front and a garden in back.
> 
> 2) Madame Geoffrin is Marie Thérèse Rodet Geoffrin, who ran one of the principal salons (literary/philosophical gatherings) in Paris throughout much of the middle of the eighteenth century. I have no idea if my portrayal here did her justice, but I thought that since she herself started life in the bourgeois classes, she might take a shine to/have a soft spot for Belle.
> 
> 3) Madame de Pompadour is, of course, the famed mistress of Louis XV. She attended Madame Geoffrin’s salons before she met Louis XV and is rumored to have offered Madame Geoffrin the opportunity to be presented at court. I took that as reason enough to assume they might have kept in correspondence and that Madame de Pompadour (who also was from relatively humble origins) might write to Madame Geoffrin about that “beauty but funny girl” who ended up married to the Prince de Beaumont.
> 
> 4) Speaking of which, I would be extremely surprised in Prince de Beaumont was a historical French title. But since one of the earlier and arguably more popular treatments of Beauty and the Beast was written by Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont, I couldn’t resist.
> 
> 5) I owe a huge debt of gratitude to the fanfiction authors who have come before, among them noblewriting, sweetfaytanner, tinydooms, HathorAroha, emjee, BloodOnUrsuline, squid_in_disguise, hester_latterly, and other people I’m probably forgetting. Basically, everyone in the BATB fandom. I love your stories so much. I have probably stolen your ideas and twisted them to suit my own purposes. I am sorry. (I am not sorry.) Please take this story as a token of my appreciation.


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